This is a very thorough and extensive 35 page website about allopathic, holistic and integrative veterinary, cat / dog nutrition and what BigPharmaMafia, bad veterinarians and pet food companies who make very low-quality pet foods don’t or won’t tell you. It will always be a work in progress. The site is sometimes intentionally provocative & outspoken in order to disturb the status quo, which needs to be educated and must be changed! All of the information on this website is fact and has been extensively researched, sourced and documented and is extremely well received by both good veterinarians and pet parents, having had 500,000 hits in a single day!

Roger Biduk would like to know when are pet owners going to wake up? “Studies suggest that up to 90% of illness and disease in cats and dogs leading to premature death are because of the garbage ingredients in pet foods and over-vaccinations also play a big role in your cat or dog dying much before their time.”

The first thing you notice about Iams petfood is the horrible ingredients and guaramteed analysis in their formulas.

For example, Iams ProActive HealthAdult Chunks contains horrible ingredients, is a pitiful 25% protein (good kibble contains 40%+ more protein!) and is super-high in carbohydrates (loaded with corn, grains, sugars and starches!) of around 45%-50%… good kibble is grain-free and around 25% carbs!

The reason for the terrible guaranteed analysis is, of course, because of the terrible ingredients: Corn Meal, Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Chicken By-Product Meal, Dried Beet Pulp, Dried Egg Product and Salt… all of these can be found on my page Ingredients to Absolutely Avoid in Pet Foods and the harm they do to cats / dogs.

Animal cruelty. It happens all the time. From pet food companies to pharmaceutical companies to veterinarians. A very good friend of mine has a sister who is a veterinarian working for a major pharmaceutical company doing tests on cats and dogs to discover drugs to cure illnesses and diseases that in many cases were caused by veterinarians recommending bad pet foods and over vaccinating. I consider this type of veterinarian as one of the lowest life forms on this planet.

Sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it. Very hard for me to write about.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed a claim with the FTC that Iams commercials were misleading, simply by saying their food was “Good for Life.” The claim came out of a nine month under cover investigation of the research labs.

“When it comes to caring about dogs and cats, Iams is telling consumers one thing and doing another,” said PETA Senior Vice President Mary Beth Sweetland. “Iams’ customers love animals and would be outraged to find out how dogs and cats have suffered for Iams’ bottom line.”

Guy Webster, owner of Earth Pets Market in Gainesville, FL, explains that the tests Iams was doing were to determine how low-quality the food can be and still have the dog retain muscle mass.

To do this, Iams cut chunks of muscle out of the dogs’ thighs. PETA caught these images on video. Other things shown on the video are:

Dogs and cats, with names like H0B101 and HILMLM circling in their barren cages

Paws that are splaying from walking on the slats of the cages

A lab tech telling the undercover PETA worker to slap the dogs on the chest if they stop breathing

Dogs laid on a cement floor after their operations, barely able to move

Dogs with open wounds and hair loss

Dogs and cats circling in their cages, suffering from loneliness and lack of socialization

The PETA representative also saw and heard things that were not caught on tape. She claims:

The vets at Iams stuck tubes down dogs’ throats to force them to drink vegetable oil.

She heard coworkers talking about a kitten that had been washed down the drain.

Coworkers who had to go home because ammonia fumes so bad that their eyes burned. The animals stayed in their cages.

Cats had only a wood board to lie on, and they had nails sticking out of them. The boards weren’t removed when one fell on a cat and crushed it, only when the lab director heard they were going to be inspected.

The lab director ordered all the dogs to be debarked because the barking disturbed him. The PETA representative tried to intervene, but then saw a lab tech covered in blood after performing surgery after surgery.

“Steroids and corticosteroids (cortisone-type anti-inflammatory drugs) are the most over-prescribed, dangerous and most abused drugs for cats and dogs. Stay away from veterinarians who prescribe these. These drugs don’t cure the real problem, which is the underlying problem and usually make things worse.” Roger Biduk

Unethical Iams and Proctor & Gamble

In 1999, P&G purchased the Iams Company, which included the Eukanuba dog food brand, for $2.3 billion. Prior to the buyout, Iams was a respectable family owned and operated dog and cat food company. Iams and, Eukanuba in particular, were a cut above other mass market dog food brands, and were only available through specialty pet stores and veterinary clinics. (Note, one can’t compare their original foods with the quality of our present products, as premium all natural dog food, as we know it today, did not exist in the 1990s).

Shortly after the acquisition, P&G expanded both Iams and Eukanuba to the mass market, making it widely available in supermarkets and retail stores such as Costco, K-Mart and Walmart, across the globe.

Within months of the takeover, it became very apparent that changes had been made to the formulation of the foods. There were numerous accounts of dogs and cats suddenly developing various health issues and dog food allergies — from diarrhea to intense itching, brittle and poor quality coats, skin rashes, hot spots, and even blown coats. The packaging remained unchanged, and no notification was given to retailers, pet owners or vets. (Note: Pet food companies are not required to list ingredient changes on dog food labels for 6 months — a legal loophole for P&G).

After much publicity and a huge public backlash, P&G admitted to switching ingredients from rice to barley, but denied making any other formula changes. They went as far as adding a PR page to their website in an attempt to dispel what they referred to as “rumors”, and insisted they were continuing to use the same quality ingredients as before! You can read more about this here.

P&G was later sued by Nutro and Kal Kan Pet Food Companies for false advertising and misleading labels, plus a class action lawsuit on behalf of consumers was settled by the California law firm, Wasserman, Comden, Casselman & Pearson.

The lawsuit brought to light that in reality, Iams had “reformulated its dog food ingredients ‘to enhance’ the formula — substituting chicken for ‘chicken by-products meal’ and a ‘carbohydrate blend’ of bran sorghum and barley for rice. It then adjusted its package instructions to reduce per-day servings by 25 percent to reflect scientific evidence, it says, that in-home dogs are 25 percent less active than kennel dogs — the basis of most dog food formulations.”

Thus, with the substitution of cheaper quality ingredients and reducing recommended feeding amounts by 25%, these “premium” foods could now compete price-wise with grocery store dog food. In truth, Iams and Eukanuba dog foods had effectively now become poor quality supermarket pet foods parading their fancy dog food labels and exploiting the Iams and Eukanuba brand names.

Perhaps even more telling is that P&G and the FDA filed motions to keep correspondence between them secret and unavailable for evidence in the lawsuits. Copies were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which disclosed that Iams and Eukanuba’s dog foods did not meet AAFCO standards even though the AAFCO stamp of approval appeared on the label.

BIG WIN FOR ANIMALS

HSI announced on January 20, 2012 that thanks to concerned people’s ongoing support and generosity, there’s exciting news to share about a very big win for animals: Humane Society International (HSI) has just secured the biggest reduction in animal testing requirements in history!

Their science team has been hard at work for more than two years, negotiating with companies, government authorities and elected officials in Brussels for major changes to European testing requirements for pesticides and biocides — among the most heavily animal-tested products in existence.

Until now, dozens of different animal-poisoning tests have been required by law before a pesticide is approved for sale. In some cases, more than 13,000 animals are killed for a single new pesticide ingredient.

But together, great strides have been made toward convincing European authorities to say goodbye to outdated animal tests and to take up the very latest animal replacement and reduction alternatives. Going forward:

Twelve-month dog-poisoning studies: gone

Lethal dose skin, inhalation and injection tests on rabbits and other animals: on the way out, no longer an absolute requirement.

HSI just secured the first-ever legal acceptance of alternative test methods and strategies that reduce animal use by 40 to 70 percent.

“I’ve never heard of or know of any cat or dog that’s stayed healthy being fed pet foods containing ingredients in “foods” like Science Diet, Hills Prescription, Royal Canin, Purina, Iams, Ol’ Roy, Eukanuba or Pedigree, many of these actually being recommended and sold by veterinarians!

“Conversely, I’ve never heard of or know of any cat or dog that’s been unhealthy being fed a balanced, enzyme-rich raw meat diet or a commercial diet that resembles one,” says Roger Biduk.